Originally posted at fa-mag.com by Mitch Anthony, September 1, 2025.
I have spent a great deal of time asking clients why they choose to work with their advisors. I’m talking about the clients who are thrilled with their advisors, not the ones sitting on the fence, or the ones with tepid responses. I hear these sorts of comments:
• “She’s just a really good person.”
• “He’s really on top of things”
• “He just gets it.”
• “There’s something special about her. I can’t quite explain it.”
These last two comments are the ones I want to take a stab at explaining. What do clients mean when they say, “You get it,” and “There’s just something about that person”?
The ‘I’s’ Have It
I’m convinced that to reach the highest echelons of success in the advisor business, you must possess the three “I’s”: intelligence, integrity and intuition.
• Intelligence is called upon for your knowledge about financial instruments, financial processes, financial markets and the economy in general.
• Integrity is called upon when it comes to the things you sell and when you sell them, and it also regards your ability to own up to mistakes and your treatment of clients.
• Intuition is required when it comes to knowing who your client is, where their comfort levels are, how they are affected by current events and what matters most to them.
Intelligence
Your intelligence as a financial advisor refers to the knowledge you’ll need to properly guide your clients. One not need be a member of Mensa nor a financial scholar to get the job done.
However, intellect has a dark side: Those who possess it often succumb to the temptation to parade it, which is an instant turnoff to many people.
I remember accompanying my mother to check out an advisor, and he spent the first five minutes explaining all his certifications—of which there were many. One didn’t need to be a psychic to read between the lines. What he was really saying was, “You need me because I’m smarter than you in this arena.” I thought to myself, “By the way, Mr. Advisor, we can see all the framed credentials on the wall behind you.” Even those felt overdone.
One of the telling signs of attractive intelligence in a person is their ability to say, “I’m not sure I know the answer. Let me look into it.” People have high regard for smarts rooted in humility.
Integrity
I once asked a golfing buddy about how he got along with his advisor.
“He’s a good guy,” my friend said, “and I believe he’s very honest. But do we really have to talk about life insurance products every time we meet?”
He was exasperated with being an extra in the play called Meeting My Sales Goal. Those practicing salesmanship are always susceptible to the temptation to overdo it and might forget there’s a balance they must strike: care for their clients against their own need to grow their businesses. It could be that they find gaps in their clients’ plans and need to fill them with new services, and if so, that service is real. But it will pay better in the long haul to be able to judge when that service is necessary.
We’re also called upon to act with integrity if we belatedly discover we have overlooked a problem or neglected a big issue in a client’s life. There are a lot of advisors who might be moral and scrupulous but who nonetheless can get caught up in a web of so many other activities that they forget to properly communicate with the clients who helped them get where they are in the first place. We would all do well to accept the wisdom that paying attention pays for the future—and is one barometer of real integrity.
Intuition
I suspect that intuition is what the highly satisfied client is referring to with statements like, “He gets it,” or those “There’s something special” references. Human intuition is a mysterious power to many, but it need not be. It’s the “right brain” showing up at work, processing what’s happening when the other part of your brain, often associated with the left hemisphere, works through mathematics and linear logic.
Historically, we haven’t received a whole lot of instruction and training on using our “right” brains. But we are now coming to understand how this kind of thinking can help us in building our businesses.
If you could work with two architects of equal intelligence—both in their skill and experience—yet one possessed better listening/people skills and seemed genuinely interested in understanding your vision of a home rather than plugging you into their preconceived plan, which would you choose?
It’s a no-brainer, right? No, it’s a right-brainer! You’re going to choose the one that “gets it”—the “it” being that you need to be understood, heard and connected to be satisfied with the experience. If you don’t feel these emotions, you tend to look elsewhere.
If you want to be the advisor who wins the best clients and wins them over for good, it’s imperative that you lead with your right brain and follow with your left. Show them that you get them and what matters to them, and then explain how financial processes, products and markets work—not vice versa.
In this way of thinking, you should always be putting “who” before “what.” You should put “why” before “how.” And you should look at the big picture before looking at the details.
Consider this chart, which illustrates how the two sides of your brain work in tandem to get results.
Your “left brain” wants details, facts, numbers and the bottom line on means (for you to ask clients, for instance, “How much do you have?”) The right brain wants to understand the big picture before diving into those details—so that it has context for an in-depth discussion.
Your right brain wants to know how you feel about ideas and wants you to realize that a person like your client can’t be understood with numbers but by their stories if you want to appreciate what their money means to them.
The bad news is that this is not largely how our industry works. We mostly use fact finders when we ought to be using feeling finders. We gather numbers when we should also be gathering significant stories about our clients’ lives and money. The industry tends to dive into detail before the big picture is clearly understood.
That’s why the best advisors stand out—because that’s largely not how they work. They understand that people come before money, because it’s people who create wealth. They also understand that intuitively connecting with a human
being comes before connecting with that wealth.
The Intuitive Agenda
The next time a client walks into your office, put your right-brain agenda in front of the left—and watch the magic that happens. Watch as deeper, more meaningful ties are forged. Here are some of the points you might consider in your agenda with clients:
• Decipher why they are here, at this moment.
• Move fluidly into meaningful dialogue.
• Find common ground (not superficial common ground).
• Find out how they feel about what is happening.
• Explain matters in clear and simple language.
• Discover and realistically adjust their expectations.
• Learn what matters most to them in an advisor.
Remember the client at the beginning who said there’s something special about their advisor. You may be reading this and saying to yourself that you have that quality—that you have this “something more.” But are you demonstrating this special quality in every client experience, or are you putting your stock in monetary mechanics and sophisticated processes?
The other day I heard a highly satisfied client say this about his advisor: “He’s a good man—you can see it in his eyes.” Indeed you can. Integrity and intuition (two of the big “I’s”) are advertised in your eyes just by your being present.
To get more, we must be more—and clients are looking for that advisor with something more. Make sure that they don’t have to look beyond you.
